Although Spain’s Civil War was fought almost 90 years ago and the resulting dictatorship of General Franco ended in 1975, painstaking work to locate mass graves used to bury opponents of the fascist regime continues in the Canaries.
Efforts to identify victims of the oppression are a key priority for the current Spanish government, particularly since the passing of the Historic Memory Law to address the legacy of the Franco regime and Civil War.
Although the law recognises the victims on both sides of the conflict, most attention has focused on those who disappeared at the hands of the dictatorship and includes measures to exhume and identify the bodies of those killed and buried in countless unmarked graves.
Despite being a long distance from the Spanish mainland, the Canaries were far from immune to the effects of the conflict which divided the country for almost four decades prior to the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s.
The Islands saw a high level of repression by Franco’s Nationalist forces, even though there were no major battles here. The number of documented victims is significantly lower than the estimated number of persons who were forcibly taken from their homes, executed and disposed of in various locations. Many of those from Tenerife are believed to have been thrown into the sea.
Recent years have seen an increase in investigations aimed at identifying more victims, including through DNA testing of remains, and providing closure for their descendants.
To aid the work, the central government has made funding available to the authorities on the islands that suffered most victims.
On a visit to Gran Canaria yesterday, regions’ minister Angel Víctor Torres – president of the Canaries from 2019-2023 and, earlier, mayor of the Gran Canaria town of Arucas, which suffered particularly harsh repression and has a very active association dedicated to victims – announced that La Palma has already received over 95,000 euros for further work, in particular for the exhumation of victims in the Vaguada de la Araña mass grave in Fuencaliente.
Similar sums are in the pipeline for four other islands to facilitate projects during the coming year, with Tenerife due to receive 100,000 euros for work on known graves in La Laguna, Arona and Santa Cruz, as well as to investigate others believed to be located in Garachico, Los Silos and Buenavista del Norte in the north-west of the island.
Photo credit: AMHA (Arucas)
